Wednesday, March 14, 2007

While attending ShoWest in Las Vegas, ComingSoon.net had a chance to talk with two of the principals behind Lionsgate's Saw franchise, Tobin Bell, who has played Jigsaw in all three movies, and Twisted Pictures Co-Producer Oren Koules about this year's Saw IV, which starts shooting in Toronto on April 16.

With a month to go, Bell still didn't know very much about how they were going to bring Jigsaw back after his apparent demise in the previous film. "I haven't read the script, don't know the story. I know I'm in it, but that's it," he told us. "It's difficult for me to comment on something I haven't read so I don't know what they're going to do or how they're going to do it. Hollywood's amazing; they come up with all kinds of ways to accomplish things. If I knew I'd tell you, but I don't. In some ways, it's a blessing."

Koules, who was being honored with partner Mark Burg with ShoWest's Award of Excellence in Producing, gave us a few more hints about the fourth film in the franchise. "Tobin knows some clues and what to tell the fans is that there are three or four scenes in 'Saw III' that seem very innocuous and benign but when you see 'Saw IV' and they flash back to those, they have a whole different meaning. We shots scenes for 'Saw III', knowing they'd be in IV. We knew what we wanted to do for IV so we actually shot scenes for III but tried to make them very innocent scenes that didn't really make sense, but when it comes back, it's a huge part about Saw IV."

While doing press for Saw III, Leigh Whannell seemed ready to have that be his last movie in the series (as did Darren Lynn Bousman who will be back for Saw IV) but Koules told us that Wan and Whannell are still in the picture. "They're totally involved. Two of the biggest ideas in this movie are Leigh's. We hired writers, but they were still very much involved."

A lot of people have been wondering how long they'll be able to keep making these Saw movies to which Koules responded, "Until people stop going."